


Words Don't Come Easily

by Mackem



Series: To Me You're A Shining Light [1]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Missing Scene, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Reunions, Touch-Starved, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28591008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mackem/pseuds/Mackem
Summary: Edér turns away, ready to follow the Watcher, when a sudden pressure at his shoulder stops him in his tracks.He looks back in surprise, and is startled to see Aloth’s slender fingers gripping his shoulder. His eyebrows rise in astonishment as his mouth falls open. He can count the number of times Aloth has voluntarily reached out to touch him on one hand.He’s pictured it happening many more times, in the privacy of his own mind, but Aloth doesn’t need to know that. Those thoughts lead nowhere, and will follow Edér to his grave.Edér hurriedly steadies his pipe before it can fall from his gaping lips and turns towards him, about to ask if he’s feeling well, when he finds himself dragged into a tight embrace.
Relationships: Aloth Corfiser/Edér Teylecg
Series: To Me You're A Shining Light [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095437
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Words Don't Come Easily

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in Pillars of Eternity 2, immediately after the party runs across Aloth in the Engwithan ruins. Inspired mostly by how hilarious I find it that he won't tell you anything until you sail away from the island, and I guess a little by how delicious mutual pining is.
> 
> I found this fic?? I just... found it, in my fics folder. I wrote this a year or so ago (maybe? Time is soup) so today I chucked a load of extra longing into it for your reading pleasure. I continue to love Aloth/Edér so very much! Rating is purely only due to Iselmyr's swearing.

The Engwithan dig site ruins seem plenty private to Edér, but Aloth must disagree. The Watcher and Edér manage to take only a single step towards him in the dank stone room before he hurriedly holds up a hand. 

“Please,” he repeats, keeping his voice low. His eyes dart nervously back towards the entrance hall, as though the animancers whose company he has infiltrated may have picked that moment to follow them, and his hand tightens on his grimoire. “Must we speak now?”

Edér exchanges a glance with The Watcher. There is a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, though she is doing her best to hide it from Aloth. He can practically see her thoughts; _just like old times_.

“We do have something to keep us busy, I suppose,” she allows, somehow managing to keep most of the amusement from her voice. Edér wonders if Aloth is anxious enough to hear it anyway. “It’s fine with me if you want to hold off for a while. Edér?”

He puffs on his pipe, and allows smoke to billow around the carved stones around them. Aloth’s eye contact is less sporadic than he remembers, but it is still twitchy, and fleeting. He wonders how much he’s changed since they parted ways, and what has remained unshakeable within him.

By Eothas, he itches to know more about him. It’s been a long time since he felt he really knew Aloth. Too long.

Then again, maybe he never really had.

He feels an old, too familiar pang at the thought. Aloth always seemed worth knowing, somehow. But trying to get that through to Aloth himself had never been easy work. He’d always pushed back at people, politely but firmly, and allowed only scarce snatches of himself to be seen.

Maybe if he’d worked harder at knowing him, Aloth might never have left at all.

Aloth’s eyes meet his again, just long enough for his uncertainty to shine through, and Edér feels his heart clench in a way it has not for years. 

He sighs. He knows damn well that he has his soft spots, and that there’s no helping them; he can’t help but want to stroke anything fuzzy and soft, and he can’t help but reach out to Aloth.

“Sure,” he says after a moment, before he points his pipe at Aloth. “But you’ll explain all this for us later, right?”

Edér has never understood anyone who couldn’t read Aloth. He’s always seemed so easy, somehow; the tightness around his mouth relaxes, and he lets out a relieved breath.

“Yes, yes. You must have questions, and I will of course provide you with answers. But not here, please?” His dark eyes move fretfully back to the entrance of the ruins. “You must surely plan to leave this island soon?”

The Watcher offers him a wry smile. “Honestly, if it wasn’t for Eothas stomping his way through our ship, we wouldn’t have come here at all.”

Aloth’s attention swings from the opening to the Watcher, and the look he gives her is a mix of astonishment and admiration. “Indeed? I see you are as lucky as ever.”

“ _Lucky_ ,” Edér mutters. He huffs, and sends twin plumes of smoke from his nostrils. “I s’pose that’s one way to think of it.”

“He didn’t say what kind of luck,” The Watcher laughs. “Good or bad! I died, sure. But I also came back!”

Aloth gives them an astonished look, before he nods sharply. “You are not the only one with questions, but please, let them wait? I will tell you anything you would like to know once we are away from the island.”

“You’re planning on comin’ with us, then?” Edér asks, though he knows the answer; he can see it plain and simple in Aloth’s normally shuttered expression. There’s a feeling in the air, or perhaps just around the Watcher. Grand things are afoot. Their help is needed. 

It sure is wonderful to have purpose again.

Aloth blinks, and suddenly seems to be grasping for words. His grimoire is pulled even more tightly against him, as though he is shielding himself behind it. “Well, I - I suppose - I had assumed that I would - but if I am not required, or, or _welcome_ , then -”

Edér watches him flounder for a moment, and doesn’t bother to hide his grin. Five years may have passed, but this, at least, has not changed. Aloth’s always been so damn fun to poke.

Beside him, The Watcher shakes her head fondly. It’s good to see some lightness to her. She always did like to see her companions joking together. He guesses it does even a heart heavy with the burdens of destiny good to laugh.

Eventually, Edér relents in the face of his squirrely fidgeting. “Nothing like that. I ain’t sayin’ you can’t join up with us. I’m only wonderin’ if you mean to?”

“Well. Um.” Aloth’s knuckles whiten as he squeezes his grimoire tightly. His chin raises, and he issues a jerky nod. “I would like that, if – if you’ll have me? Again?”

“You’re always welcome to come along with us, Aloth.” The Watcher’s voice is warm, and soothing, and Edér smiles to himself as Aloth’s shoulders loosen immediately. “That was never in doubt.”

“Yeah, d’you really think we’d turn you away?” Edér asks. He grins brightly. “We’ve been lookin’ for a cabin boy!”

“A… cabin boy,” Aloth echoes uncertainly.

The Watcher does a poor job of hiding her amusement this time. “Pay him no heed, Aloth. Surely you remember what he’s like!”

“Yes, indeed. That Dyrwoodian sense of humour,” Aloth says shortly. He levels a waspish look at Edér as the Watcher chuckles and turns away, making her way further into the ruin. “I had forgotten quite how hard it can be to fathom.”

“Aw, there’s nothing to it. You’ll soon get back into the swing of it. Or as close as you ever got to it, at least,” Edér grins, and sidles close to give Aloth a friendly elbow to the side. 

He produces a very satisfying huff, and Edér can’t help but beam at him, suddenly taken over with good cheer. He really never thought he’d get to see Aloth again, yet here he is, frowning just as endearingly as he remembers. “Don’t it just feel like the old times again? I missed you, Aloth!”

He does not wait for an answer. He knows Aloth well enough not to expect one. 

Edér turns away, ready to follow the Watcher, when a sudden pressure at his shoulder stops him in his tracks. 

He looks back in surprise, and is startled to see Aloth’s slender fingers gripping his shoulder. His eyebrows rise in astonishment as his mouth falls open. He can count the number of times Aloth has voluntarily reached out to touch him on one hand.

He’s pictured it happening many more times, in the privacy of his own mind, but Aloth doesn’t need to know that. Those thoughts lead nowhere, and will follow Edér to his grave.

Edér hurriedly steadies his pipe before it can fall from his gaping lips and turns towards him, about to ask if he’s feeling well, when he finds himself dragged into a tight embrace. 

Wiry limbs wrap around his slack, unresisting form, squeezing him with a surprising strength, before one hand moves to tousle his hair. “Fye, an’ if we haven’t missed you too, you daft bugger,” a voice cackles against his ear, and Edér’s surprise morphs into delight.

“Iselmyr!” he laughs, and takes the opportunity to hug her in return. The body in his arms surges even closer to him, allowing him to quickly catalogue what lies beneath the armour; too little flesh, speaking of days spent doing more thinking than looking after basic needs, but Aloth feels reassuringly solid in his arms. “Well, hey! How are you?”

“All the better for seeing your handsome self again,” she grins. She pulls away far enough to cup his face in both hands, and Edér feels his breath stutter in his lungs. It feels suddenly, startlingly intimate to be face to face with Aloth like this. It takes a great deal of effort to remind himself that it isn’t technically _him_. Aloth has never wanted to be as close as this to him. “What a treat to see a lad like yoursel in this shitehole! D’ye ken how boring it’s been?”

It takes a moment to find his voice again. Aloth’s body is lean and heated against him, and he shivers for reasons that have nothing to do with the cool air of the ruins. “He never takes you anywhere fun, huh?” he manages, and watches Aloth’s delicate features curl into a scowl.

“I never get a say in where we’re goin’. D’ye think I wanted us to come _here_? Day after miserable day spent pretendin’ to be someone we ain’t in the arse end of nowhere!” Iselmyr scoffs. After a second, however, her expression morphs into a sly smirk, and she gives his cheek a sharp pat. Her eyes are gleaming wickedly. “But I’ll wager that’ll all change now. Sometime’s fun’s in the comp’ny you keep, aye?”

“You ain’t wrong,” Edér murmurs, summoning a warm smile. It broadens as he watches Aloth’s face change rapidly, the cunning mirth of Iselmyr melting into Aloth’s dawning horror when he surfaces to find himself pressed close to Edér.

He scrambles away like a scalded cat, his fingers fluttering over his hair and the cloth of his armour as he panics. “ _Iselmyr_!” he hisses, with a flustered look at Edér. His cheeks are stained pink, and his eyes dart frantically around the ruin, landing on rocks, pillars, rubble; anywhere but Edér. 

He tries not to take it personally. “You all right?”

Aloth nods rapidly. He opens his grimoire, closes it again, and opens it to ruffle restlessly through pages. His eyes stare sightlessly as they flit over spell after spell. “I apologise, I - she overwhelmed me, I assure you, that was hardly the way _I_ wished to act!”

“No, I didn’t think it was,” Edér chuckles, and it sounds empty, even to his own ears. His heart is no longer in the teasing. He wonders if Aloth will notice, and tries to find a smile to plaster in place.

Dark eyes meet his briefly. Edér reads much in them; the usual irritation with his passenger, clear embarrassment… and frustration? He’s not sure. Perhaps reading Aloth isn’t as easy as he remembers. 

Perhaps too much time has passed.

“Please forgive her – our impertinence,” Aloth says tightly. He closes his grimoire with a sharp snap and clenches his fingertips in the binding. “We did not wish to overstep our bounds.”

Something within Edér softens. Having to ignore the flip in his belly when Aloth speaks is at least one thing that has not changed despite the passage of time.

He can’t help but wonder when was the last time Aloth let himself hug anyone.

Something cold settles in his stomach at the thought. He sighs, and shrugs. “Hey, no harm done.” He keeps his voice light, and his grin is small, but genuine. “There ain’t nothing wrong with giving an old friend a hug, now is there?”

“I suppose not,” says Aloth, but doubt hangs from his words. Edér forces himself not to consider what that uncertainty indicates. He knows a little of Aloth’s past, and he remembers all too well the distance at which he held companions. He had always acted as though he had no choice in the matter.

As though the idea of being close to anyone was unthinkable.

He cannot imagine feeling that way. But Edér knows all too well how it feels to lack for companionship. The last five years have been emptier than he’d like to admit.

Edér watches him for a long moment. He takes in the stiff tension in his posture, and the fretful movement of his eyes, and the way he hides behind his grimoire, and he sighs to himself as he remembers all too late that Aloth’s companionship is a double-edged sword.

He gets to be around him, sure. But he cannot get as close as he wants.

Aloth shifts in place. He raises his eyes to Edér’s and, for just a moment, offers a smile; brief, and faint, but real. “An old friend?” 

Edér shrugs. His stomach churns uneasily. “Well. Ain’t we?”

To his surprise, the answer is instantaneous. “Yes.”

He blinks in astonishment. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Aloth repeats, and Edér is surprised by the certainty behind his voice. He nods sharply to emphasise his point, then… Edér almost swallows his tongue. Aloth hesitates for a moment, then quickly darts forward to squeeze Edér’s shoulder. His fingers land in exactly the same spot as they had when Iselmyr had wrested control of him, but the touch feels so different; fleeting, and timid, but real enough to have Edér gaping at him in astonishment.

Aloth clears his throat, and marches hurriedly past him without another look. “Wait for me, if you please!” he calls after the Watcher. “I have studied maps of these passages!”

Edér watches him go with a slowly growing smile. He’d be inclined to think he imagined all of that, but the heat of his hand lingers on his shoulder, and he can’t help but chuckle after a moment. 

So maybe he can’t get as close to Aloth as he wishes. What does that matter? He can still get as close as Aloth allows him to, and he’ll be thankful for everything that he gets.

When he walks after them, he does so with a low, warm hum, and an amused smile tugging at his lips. 

He feels the phantom press of fingers against his shoulder for hours afterwards.


End file.
